Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Is J-10B finally revealing itself?

Back in December, we heard about J-10B taking off for the first time. So in the past week, we apparently got the first set of images for this plane. I've delayed posting these pictures, because it is very unclear and many people thought it looked to be PSed from previous photos. But I think these pictures have lasted long enough to have validity. And in many ways, I think the picture actually was pretty much what I expected it to be. You can see J-10B in the photos:Now, we also see a comparison someone made between J-10 and J-10BThe differences look to be:

A long nose probe, although this is probably just for this development stage

The nose is now oval shape rather than round shape, this leads to speculation that this is built for an AESA radar, which I would agree with. It's pretty obvious that AESA radar is intended for this plane, although I'm not sure where NRIET is on mass production of T/R modules

19 comments:

If i am not wrong you were a big skeptic of the fact that J-10 will have DSI. Alot of other people considered it a step background on the grounds that it will reduce it's Mach-2 speed limit (even though i havent seen a single serious scientific publication supporting that claim).

What are your thoughts now? Do you think PLAAF decided to take that step backwards?

Are you that dude on PDF that I debated with before? Who thinks JF-17 is somehow superior to J-10?

Do a little research, fixed intakes can only get to a certain speed, variable inlet like the one J-10 had allowed for better supersonic performance. You might want to look up why F-15 has a much higher max velocity than F-22. PLAAF has certain requirements which they gave for J-10B, if that means sacrificing some supersonic performance for more stealthiness then that's what they are going for.

No, I' am not that dude! I am the other dude who has been following your posts and if my memory is not failing me you have regularly shown great skepticsim in past about DSI being incorporated on J-10 due to the speed reasons.That does stand in big contrast to the contentions about PLAAF's uncompromising stance on speed requirement eve if we buy this speed argument.

Anyway we all got it wrong and nothing wrong with it, as long as we are more forthcoming about it ;)

P.S Where did you find F-22's Max speed? I thought it was still a secret!

Speed depends mainly on factors like weight,drag and most importantly actual exit values of thrust. Variable intakes tend to affect the last factor but adversely affects Weight/Complexity factor. How much weight could be shed by abondoning a heavy and complex system in favor of light weight arrangement and how much that will help the max speed is something that needs to be considered before making direct relationships between inlets and speed.

Plus if you would spend few minutes googling you'll definitely find somethings that could be done to fixed inlets inorder to optimize high speed performance well upto hypersonic regimes.

Former Lockheed Raptor chief test pilot Paul Metz stated that the Raptor has a fixed inlet; but while the absence of variable intake ramps may theoretically make speeds greater than Mach 2.0 unreachable, there is no evidence to prove this.

Generally the idea is that it's much harder for something with fixed inlet to achieve the same maximum speed. After it gets close to Mach 2.0, it becomes harder to reach that speed.

And this is something consistently state by Chinese sources as the reason that they went with variable intake on J-10 in the first place.

And we all got it wrong? I'm frankly tired of PDF members getting upset with me saying that J-10 is a vastly superior fighter to JF-17 and then sending wise-cracks at me afterward. If this is goal here, then you can get lost.

This definitely your blog, and i'll let you have the last word. I have no idea why you are making those insinuation about me being the guy who told you JF-17 is better than J-10. The last few lines surely tell alot about your background though...

Pakistani kids love to dote the "Thunder" with exorbitant praises. Unfortunately when asked what it is their engineers provided to the project, they come up empty.

If or when the PLAAF decides to field this version of "J-10B" is still questionable. This plane is still a prototype and entirely susceptible to future modifications.

Coming onto Feng's blog (which has provided valuable analysis on numerous Chinese defense projects) and attempting to ridicule his opinion is both pitiful and pathetic. If your visiting Feng's blog, it's obvious you're here to learn. There's no point in posting insinuating comments here. There are however, plenty room for that on other forums.

For AESA, I think what you are seeing is several major radar firms in China working on them like NRIET, 38th institute and 607. And then if you read from big shrimps in Chinese forum, it's believed that J-10B will be equipped with AESA radar. Although, I have to say that initially it might not be equipped with AESA radar, Crobato made a good point when he pointed out several other fighters that have the oval shaped nose but are equipped with slotted array radar. But once AESA is ready for mass production in China (and I don't know when that is), J-10 will be the first one for it.

So, Feng. We will not buy anymore fighters from russia, even Su-33, this is great news, I really hope we will NEVER buy any thing from russia anymore. Instead, we should invest our money on our own fighters and equibments.

Also, Feng. On PDF, people are talking about the second batch JF-17, what will the differences between the first and second batch??

As for our aircraft-carrier, when do you think they will be completed?? How many will be completed?? I know that J-11C will be the airborn fighter but when will J-11C be introduced?? My guess is by 2011 we will have two aircraft carriers completed and armed with J-11C, along with Varyag as a training carrier.

I think generally speaking, the carrier project is going to be laid down soon. I've posted in the past about what I think the schedule might be. In order to get all the parts including the naval fighter, naval AEW ready, that would probably take until 2015. And I would think that it would take even longer to get carrier operations down.

Not sure about the second batch of JF-17, probably better avionics and weapons? We will have to see.

Recently, I have seen several posting, on different, referencing the graduation of the first group of female fighter pilots. I have also seen comments to the effect that it was an April Fool's joke. Do you have any insight or opinions?